How the New York Rangers are unprepared for the playoffs

Defensive depth

With the Rangers left with Brendan Smith as their only option to replace Skjei, the lack of depth on the blue line was obvious.  The team clearly felt that Libor Hajek was not strong enough to be called up, even as a back up.   They chose to go with the minimum six defensemen on their roster after the trade deadline.

Even more glaring is the lack of NHL experience in the organization.  The only blueliner in the entire New York Rangers organization not on the major league roster who has NHL experience is Libor Hajek with all of 33 games. No other defenseman playing for the Wolf Pack has skated in an NHL game.

Here are the defensemen who played over 20 games this season in Hartford: Nick Ebert, Mason Geertsen, Libor Hajek, Vincent LoVerde, Darren Raddysh, Yegor Rykov,  Not exactly household names.

The playoffs

All of this means that the Rangers are poorly equipped to deal with a deep playoff run.  The Stanley Cup Playoffs are a war of attrition and a thin defense will be exposed even more if they sustain any injuries.

Let’s not forget that Raphael Diaz, Matt Hunwick, Dylan McIlrath, Nick Holden, Roman Hamrlik, Steve Eminger and Stu Bickel all saw action in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the Rangers between 2012 and 2017.   While none were stars, all except McIlrath were experienced NHL players.

Ranger fans have to pray that Trouba, DeAngelo and Fox avoid injury.  The only righthanded shooting replacement in the organization is Darren Raddysh, a 24 year old career minor leaguer.  They traded their best right handed option in Joey Keane, swapped to Carolina for Julien Gauthier.  While they were dealing from organization strength when they did it, it’s a trade that may come back to haunt them.